


Be Still My Love

by whyyesitscar



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:56:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when the world is ending, they find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Still My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics taken from "Last Night of the World" by Bruce Cockburn.

  
**"if this were the last night of the world,**   
**what would i do?**   
**what would i do that was different,**   
**unless it was champagne with you?"**   


It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. This is how the world ends in movies and TV shows—with zombies or robots or biological warfare. That isn’t how the real world is supposed to end. The real end of the world is supposed to happen billions of years in the future, when the sun burns out and expands to a planetary nebula and no one cares because we’ve all moved into moon colonies or space stations. That’s what the end of the world is supposed to look like—progress.

It isn’t supposed to be copper and cracked, like if someone took the Grand Canyon and replicated it all over the globe. It isn’t supposed to wipe out my favorite places and people. It isn’t supposed be overrun with human-android overlords. It certainly isn’t supposed to look like the Matrix, especially if we don’t get the promise of Keanu Reeves. I’d settle for a Chosen One if this is how the world is supposed to end.

(Except this isn’t how the world is supposed to end, so I guess it makes a twisted sort of sense that we’re left to fend for ourselves. Which is a shame; if we got Neo, we might get Trinity too, and then at least I’d see a hot chick in leather before we all became extinct).

But this is how the world is ending. Computers led to iPhones, iPhones led to 3D printers, and then some douchebag had to program his to think for itself. And now robots are making guns better than we could ever dream of and they’re pissed as hell. This is like something out of Sam’s nerdy comics. I’d ask him which one but I don’t care, and I haven’t spoken to him in years. In fact, I kind of hope the robots got him first.

There are a lot of things happening now that weren’t supposed to happen.

/

There isn’t much left of the world. Our reality is collapsing, and here I am, sitting in the dirt, my back against the cold ruins of a building. It might have been a modern art museum before the Clash, but fire and violence has charred it beyond recognition. It curls downwards, its tendrils touching the frayed remains of my shirt.   
  
I knew I should have worn a jacket today.   
  
The smoke hangs heavy in the air. I lean back against it, trying to create a pillow for my head. The noxious clouds are stifling, but they cushion against the bleakness of the world. They create a haze, and I dream in haze. I just never wanted to dream about you.  
  
(In my dreams, I close my eyes and when I open them again, you’re standing in the middle of a lake. I have a boat, but you have never liked to sail.  
  
In my dreams, you’re standing in the middle of a field with overgrown grass, and you won’t throw me the machete in your hands.  
  
In my dreams, I find you just when it’s too late.)  
  
“Hey. Are you alive?”  
  
I crack open an eyelid and see fire. It’s licked the sky in a circle around my resting place, but somehow you have managed to find a way through. I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry about that.  
  
I compromise and cough. “Not for very much longer.”  
  
I feel you slide down next to me, wincing when your back snags on a jagged piece of metal. “Yeah, it’s about that time, I guess.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
Your mouth is set in a grim line. “I feel great.”  
  
I scoff. “Good luck with that.” Your legs stretch out against mine; they are burned and blackened. (I should have remembered that you were always a good liar). Your hand finds the gash in my stomach, the one that is spilling blood I’ve stopped caring about saving. I still cringe when you touch it. 

(Your hair is choppy and singed. Flames have charred off the tips and left brown, crumbly ashes, like when you take paper out of a fire just before it completely shrivels. Your blue eyes are the only way I remember what blue looks like anymore. I’ve spent so long living in red, dressing in black, dreaming in grey. Blue feels like a hallucination, like something you read in books where impossible things—magic, dragons, happiness—are real).  
  
I look at your dirty nails and feel anger well up within me. “Why are you here? I know you don’t want to be.”  
  
“It’s the end of the world. Where else am I supposed to be?”  
  
I sniff. I could make shapes out of the smoke it’s so thick. If my arms had any drop of strength left, I would make a shadow-you that still loves me. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to touch that one either.  
  
“You’re losing a lot of blood.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Does it hurt?”  
  
“Not at all.”  
  
Your hand finds my calloused fingers. “That’s bad,” you say with a squeeze.  
  
I don’t want to squeeze back, but I can’t help it. “I know.”  
  
You brush a hair back from my cheek. “I’m sorry I gave up on us.”  
  
I lean my head on your shoulder. If you had asked, I would say it was because I can’t hold it up anymore. “You didn’t in my dreams.”

/

_The end of the world is a lot different in my dreams. Maybe the robots still win. Maybe geniuses are still douchebags, politicians still make everything worse, and the human race still dies forever._

_But there are more colors than red. There is still blue and yellow and the white of your smile. There are still flowers and hope. And there certainly aren’t any fish-faced blond boys who steal girlfriends. There certainly aren’t any other people you could fall in love with. There aren’t any colleges that make relationships impossible; there aren’t any families that pressure you until you crack. There aren’t any ill-advised weddings that you’ll never, ever take back, no matter how much I think you want to sometimes._

_In my dreams, you don’t fight for the United Human Front. In my dreams, you aren’t clad in ominous black fatigues. You don’t command a battalion and you don’t carry the biggest gun I’ve ever seen. But in my dreams, when Quinn dies, you do cry. Sometimes you cry in my dreams because I think you look beautiful no matter what._

_I’m not sad when the world ends this way. I can’t be sad because I’ve got you and a little house in Lima. We have two cats and this time they both like me. You grow rosemary in the back garden because it’s my favorite herb. I keep daisies in the windowsill because they’re uncomplicated and beautiful, just like you. At the end of the world, life just keeps going until it doesn’t anymore. Nothing explodes. No one is bleeding. Robots are ruthless but merciful. Maybe they’ve poisoned our water supply slowly, so slowly that we’ve been dying for months and no one even cares._

_In my dreams we sit on the porch of our tiny house. We don’t have any food left unless we want to start chowing on the rosemary or the daisies, and that isn’t really an option. But we do have a bottle of champagne and two glasses to fill, and all the time left in the world. We have two rocking chairs and a humid sky, and the sun is setting, recreating the color spectrum just for us. We have hands to hold and lips to smile and tears to cry._

_“More champagne?” you’ll ask me, and I’ll kiss your hand before I reply._

_“Yes please, baby.”_

_I’ll stretch across my chair, reaching for you with my other hand so I don’t have to let go of yours. You’ll refill my glass and kiss me gently and we’ll sip our last drinks together._

_Who knows what we’ll run out of first, champagne or time. We’ll keep rocking, and I’ll keep loving you until my body gives out._

/

“What happened?”

I try to keep my breathing even, even though every part of me wants to wheeze and give up. But I’m not ready to forget you yet.

“Fucking D-Dog got me. Those metal teeth are sharp motherfuckers.”

“Yeah, those things are bad news.”

“You’re telling me.” I heave a sigh and nuzzle my head further into you under the pretense of getting comfortable. Comfortable is a pipe dream at this point. “Why aren’t you with your squad?”

“Nano bomb. Got into their throats before they could even think about putting their gas masks on.”

“So how’d you survive?”

“I put mine on when I woke up this morning.” You shrug. “Had a feeling.”

“Ah.” I remember your feelings. I remember what it was like to know them. “Sucks about all your friends.”

“Yeah. Sam tried to fight, but…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

(I am sorry, just not for the reasons you think. I hate that you’re sad. I hate that you’re lonely. I even dislike the fact that Sam’s dead.

But mostly I’m sorry for the fact that I’m not the person who cheers you up anymore.

You’re sitting here next to me, letting me rest against you, and it’s everything I’ve been dreaming about for a really long time. And still I’m sad.)

“Don’t you want revenge? Like, shouldn’t you be out there wasting those metal assholes?”

“It doesn’t matter, really.” Your voice is detached and hollow, like you used to get when you were doubting yourself (or me). I heard that tone a lot before you left. “We’re running out of ammo, three quarters of the world is dead, and the robots have ruined the soil so badly that nothing will grow here for another thousand years. It’s over.”

“Oh.”

I think I feel you kiss the top of my head. I’m not sure what I’m feeling. I’m not sure what feeling feels like anymore, really.

“I’m done fighting, Santana.”

“Oh. So you’ll stay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever think about where we’d be if this hadn’t happened?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” you sigh.

“Tell me about it.”

You pull me closer to you and it shifts something in me. I can’t feel my legs, I can’t really see, but I can hear you. I hear you as you talk about cats and Florida, about tulips and sexy showers. You talk about beaches and kisses and late nights that fade into early mornings that we always share. I hear you speak until I’m not sure if it’s even real anymore

I topple into you even more, throwing an arm across your waist and staining your pants. I know they’ll crack when the blood dries. The smoke has lulled me into a trance, and I breathe it in with purpose, letting it settle into my lungs.  
  
I close my eyes and I am made of dreams, and your heart is smooth and whole and mine, and I never have to wake up again.


End file.
